Western red cedar (Thuja plicata), also called western arborvitae, giant arborvitae, or Pacific red cedar, an ornamental and timber evergreenconifer of the cypress family (Cupressaceae), native to the Pacific coast of North America.

Stand of Western red cedars (Thuja plicata) in Olympic National Park, …

Michael T. Sedam/Corbis

Western red cedar (Thuja plicata).

Verna R. Johnston

Western red cedar trees and shrubs are pyramidal in form and may be up to 60 metres (about 200 feet) tall and 6 metres in circumference, measured above the strongly buttressed base. The cinnamon-red or brownish outer bark is relatively thin, fissured, and scaly, shedding in irregular flakes; the inner bark is fibrous. Short, horizontal, or slightly drooping branches bear dense branchlet systems in flattened sprays that appear bright green on the upper side and dark waxy green beneath. The tiny, pointed, scalelike leaves may have faint whitish patches on the undersurfaces. The egg-shaped or slightly elongated cones, 8 to 12 mm (0.3 to 0.5 inch) long, bear five to six pairs of thin flexible scales.

Hikers passing a large old-growth Western red cedar (Thuja plicata) in …

Seifried/U.S. National Park Service

Western red cedar is a popular ornamental and hedge tree in North America and Great Britain. The wood is used for shingles, posts, pilings, boat making, greenhouse fittings, and other purposes for which resistance to moisture and decay is more important than strength.

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the cypress family (order Pinales), 30 genera with 133 species of evergreen ornamental and timber shrubs and trees, distributed throughout the world. The leaves of these plants are opposite or whorled and usually paired or in threes. Adult leaves are narrow, scalelike, and pressed against the...

in woody plants, tissues external to the vascular cambium (the growth layer of the vascular cylinder); the term bark is also employed more popularly to refer to all tissues outside the wood. The inner soft bark, or bast, is produced by the vascular cambium; it consists of secondary phloem tissue...

Yellowish or reddish-brown arborvitae wood is soft, light in weight but very durable, fragrant, and easily worked. The giant arborvitae (T. plicata) is the most important timber-producing species, but the wood of the American arborvitae (T. occidentalis) is also frequently used.